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Rude W*nkers I have met - Atheism & Religion in the Social Context 2


Stubby

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You don't have to tell them to "fuck off" to convey your own stance. A simple "Oh how nice of you. I wish I believed in God so that your prayer won't be wasted, but I do appreciate your thoughtfulness." or "Thank you, but I don't believe God. But thanks all the same."

There's a difference between 'not needing to know', and making a big deal of it.

Do you think that TP's "wasted prayer" approach is not making a big deal out of it? If someone said that to me, I would think they were very rude.

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If someone said they're praying for me, I'd thank them for thinking of me, but I would also ask them to please stop it. Prayer makes me sad. It's an insult to all the good things that really do make a difference. Prayer is doing nothing while you think you're doing something.

Daniel Dennett explains this far better than I do: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dennett06/dennett06_index.html

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Well he said he didn't need to know. But people want you to know by their wearing it, or the garb or whatever. Same goes with political car stickers or "spay and neuter" your pet (which I agree with BTW). This is a good discussion. Does my right to "wear" my beliefs, religious, political, social, or otherwise, trump your right to not care to know.

In an ideal world, everyone should be fine with displaying icons of their faith in a non-intrusive manner. I certainly will classify wearing a crucifix on your necklace as non-intrusive.

However, the U.S. is far from ideal. While in principle I don't object to people wearing crucifixes, it is still yet-another reminder of this country's adherence to Christianity, and with that, all the cultural baggage for someone who's NOT Christian living in that society. So for me, the slight annoyance is not at the person wearing the crucifix, but at the social dominance of that one religion.

ETA:

An example might be if you have a friend in your social group that you just can't stand, and yet, all your friends are wearing bracelets with that person's initials and sometimes pictures on it. You don't begrudge your friends for liking that person, but it sure will get irritating having to be constantly reminded of the existence of that person.

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Erik,

If I'm providing Pro Bono legal work for a friend while simultaniously praying for their well being, is that problematic?

Do you think the target of your prayer needs to know that you're praying for them? If so, why?

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Do you think that TP's "wasted prayer" approach is not making a big deal out of it? If someone said that to me, I would think they were very rude.

That quote were not the one where he mentioned crucifixes, this is:

I typically just sit quietly to wait for someone finish saying their grace. This I put into the same category as people wearing crucifixes - no, I really don't need to know, but ok, do your thing and let's get on with it.

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TP: I understand what you are saying. I just would not feel the hatred when visiting Japan and seeing temples or the spinning wheels and prayer chants of Buddhist monks if I were in Nepal. I wish you wouldn't hate Christianity in general as you wouldn't hate Islam in general or Judaism in general. That makes me sad. I wish you would understand that intolerance is of our own making.

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TP,

No I don't. I frequently pray for people I don't know. I wasn't predicating the work on being able to pray for the person i'm working for. I was asking if i was doing both if the prayer is still problematic. In other words just because I pray for someone it doesn't mean I've done all I can for them or that I should not do much more than merely pray.

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TP: I understand what you are saying. I just would not feel the hatred when visiting Japan and seeing temples or the spinning wheels and prayer chants of Buddhist monks if I were in Nepal. I wish you wouldn't hate Christianity in general as you wouldn't hate Islam in general or Judaism in general. That makes me sad. I wish you would understand that intolerance is of our own making.

I am not sure that I am being intolerant of Christians, per se, for the simple fact that I absolutely cannot abide by their religions. I am not seeking out ways to intimidate Christians from practicing their faiths (see my posts defending conservative evangelical Christians' right to teach their children about their faith), nor am I starting a social movement to ostracize Christians.

As for not feeling the hatred, I think context is important. I think if you're a woman living under the theocratic rule of the Tibetan buddhism, you just might come to hate that flavor of buddhism. But yes, I admit that I have a very strong and visceral dislike of the basic tenets of Christianity, but I do my best to not let it affect how I treat actual Christians.

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another thing - what's up with slut-shaming atheists? how does that make sense?

eta: You know, I've never met a wanker atheist who wasn't a guy. I'm not proposing a causal relationship, but demographic inquiries are something of interest in this regard...

This baffles me as well. What is that?

What possible justification could there be under atheism for this?I don't see how the taboo can be justified without religion.

As for crucifixes...I don't know, I've never had a problem with them simply because they remind me that most people are Christians. I certainly will not wait for them to say grace or whatever before eating, I think it speaks to a casual arrogance that I have no interest in confirming, but I don't see the harm in people wearing crucifixes/

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There's a certain degree to which the "praying for someone" is just an empty gesture, a bit like the poker dealer wishing "good luck" to the table when they sit down. There's always the slightest temptation to point out that, apart from hitting a jackpot of some sort, at the poker table one person's "good luck" always translates to another person's "bad luck" so any wish of a net good luck at the table is an impossibility, but obviously that's not worth it and the statement is, after all, harmless.

But when it comes to prayer, I can't help but think of the "pray for someone" tendency as being reinforcement, however minor, to the destructive thinking that magical thinking can solve actual problems. How much earlier would humans have developed aqueducts if we hadn't wasted all that energy on rain dance choreography? Now, I understand that in most practical applications, it's not going to be a direct impedance. If I'm diagnosed with cancer, and friends choose to pray for me, that's probably not going to be to the exclusion of their suddenly becoming a medical researcher and developing treatments to fix my cancer. At the same time, whenever I see someone's money bilked by a "psychic", I can't help but think how that money could have been saved and how these thieves could be made extinct if only our culture didn't offer near-constant tiny reminders of just how acceptable that magical thinking really is.

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I am not sure that I am being intolerant of Christians, per se, for the simple fact that I absolutely cannot abide by their religions. I am not seeking out ways to intimidate Christians from practicing their faiths (see my posts defending conservative evangelical Christians' right to teach their children about their faith), nor am I starting a social movement to ostracize Christians.

As for not feeling the hatred, I think context is important. I think if you're a woman living under the theocratic rule of the Tibetan buddhism, you just might come to hate that flavor of buddhism. But yes, I admit that I have a very strong and visceral dislike of the basic tenets of Christianity, but I do my best to not let it affect how I treat actual Christians.

I totally get it. I would feel the same. Again, people have screwed up so much for all kinds of reasons, in particular religion.

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Ser G,

If prayer is an empty gesture why do you care if inand other people of faith do it. It "neither picks [your] pocket or breaks [your] leg."

Because I care about humanity and I see the perpetuation of magical thinking as impedance to its progress.

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SerG,

Did Newton's profound religious belief harm him? What about Decarte? Leibnitz? Mendel?

Absolutely. Newton in particular wasted vast amounts of his intellect and time in the pursuit of what amounted to magic.

Does having religous faith mean people cannot make profound and important leaps in rational science and philosophy?

Of course not. What kind of dumb question is this? It's not a binary question. Think of it as a strong headwind. Some people can run fast enough to overcome it, but there can be no argument as to its impedance of overall forward progress. Look at the rate of technological development in any environment where Big Religion is in charge. They were called the "Dark Ages" for a reason.

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Guest Raidne

I totally get it. I would feel the same. Again, people have screwed up so much for all kinds of reasons, in particular religion.

This is tough - I would love to say that people screw up for a lot of reasons and some people attribute their screwing up to Christianity, but with Christianity one person who screwed up is the apostle Paul and he wrote all of that stuff right into the holy text of the religion and - as far as I know and please feel free to correct me - no Christian has disclaimed the books attributed to Paul.

I've known people who called themlseves "Christian mystics" and I'm more tolerant of that because there's a break with garden-variety Christianity and often an endorsement of things like the Gospel of Mary that significantly change the character of the religion.

With regard to other religions mentioned, Buddhism, as far as I can tell and I am no expert, has a lot of things that one can point to as sexist, but then a lot of statements that contradict the sexism as well, like the idea that any clinging to gender identity is undesirable and will prevent englightenment. Islam has problems similar to those in Christianity. Judaism is easier for me because most of the Jewish people I know are Reform, which I think endorses sexual and gender equality. From what I understand, Buddhism - on a theological level - doesn't raise issues with sexual orientation and Reform Judaism wholly supports same-sex sexual orientation. So, what I will call "overreaching displays of religion" - those that bring me personally into the zone of the person's religious beliefs - are more problematic to me from Christians and Muslims than from Buddhists or Jews.

To put it another way, if the Bible is the word of God, and that God is real, than I'm not sure if I want that sexist and homophobic God doing me any favors. OTOH, if you're a openly gay Christian or other liberal Christian and think the anti-gay (and hopefully anti-woman) text in the Bible is mistranslated, misinterpreted, or just shouldn't be there, then as far as I can tell, introspectively, I don't have any problem with you praying for me. It's just hard to tell you apart from the rest of them because you're not in the majority in the United States, so maybe you want to slap some other symbols onto that necklace with that cross so I get the picture.

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Guest Raidne

SerG,

Did Newton's profound religious belief harm him?

??????

ETA: Oooh, SG, Galactus is going to write you a dissertation in response to that last bit there. Before he gets there I'll say that I don't think technological development, such as it is, really did suffer like you say. Big Religion was certainly in charge in the 12th Century, for instance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_of_the_12th_century

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